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Original poster

Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

232 replies

isabeltydoria · 17/06/2018 09:25

This question was asked on another forum, but I wanted to copy my answer here too and ask it here too (I hope that's okay?)

Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

Just a yes or no would be interesting if you don't feel like commenting further; I'll put my (long!) reply into a comment.

OP posts:
ConstantlyCold · 17/06/2018 09:41

No, and I was very much a tomboy. Very different from being trans.

53rdWay · 17/06/2018 09:40

As a teenager I was pretty gender-nonconforming and got bullied mercilessly at school for being not feminine enough in appearance or interests. Wouldn’t wear skirts or dresses, wouldn’t wear makeup, wasn’t interested in boys, felt deeply like I wasn’t what a girl was supposed to be. I was definitely “not like the other girls” as far as I was concerned.

I would have absolutely worn breast binders and called myself non-binary had that been an option. I hated my body going through puberty, I used to fantasise about pretty graphic self-harm to make it stop changing. I wouldn’t wear a bra for ages (because it meant acknowledging I had breasts) and then cried endlessly when my mother suggested I do. I wouldn’t even look in a full-length mirror for years, I was that repulsed by my body. Growing into an adult woman’s body felt like a life sentence.

I am much happier now as an adult. I’m glad I wasn’t growing up in the age of YouTube-induced ROGD.

Hideandgo · 17/06/2018 09:39

I don’t think anyone can answer to be honest. They seriously can’t know. It just seems like another thread to express outrage at trans children and how they ‘would have just been tomboys in our day’. Trans kids are very different and unless your were one or patented one, it’s of course easy to think you know better.

Neolara · 17/06/2018 09:38

I was adamant I wanted to be a boy between the ages of about 7 and 10. Short hair, boys clothes. But that was because as far as I could see, boys got to have a lot more fun and were offered many more interesting opportunities than girls. Now very happily married with 3 kids.

bearhug · 17/06/2018 09:35

Not me but one or two of my friends might have.

UpstartCrow · 17/06/2018 09:33

Yes, I hated being a girl, and my parents would have jumped at the chance to turn me into the boy they wanted.

It took me decades to realise I didn't hate being a girl, I hated the way I was treated because I was a girl.

Original poster
isabeltydoria · 17/06/2018 09:25

For me, I would have, definitely. I was a total tomboy when I was young; I then spent two years pretending to be a boy. I had shaved hair, football shirts, a boys name. My parents indulged it, obviously. I was proud of being better than all the other silly girls. Deep down (and not so deep down) I hated girls and myself for being one.

Then slowly, slowly I grew up. These days I'm fine being a woman, it's just a biological body, it's not an identity and it's the thing that I live in; but back then the changes were awful and I because I hated femininity and saw it as inferior I wanted out.

Oh and I found out I'm autistic. Which probably explains a lot!

Basically it was internalised misogyny when I was young. If school had offered me pills and surgery and special care and to make everyone else use my new name, I would have been desperate for it.

I have no idea where my life would have led but I don't think happily married to the man I almost consider to be a soulmate, in the home and life we both love.

Also, we tried for several years to have kids and couldn't, but if you'd told me as a teen that infertility was awful I'd have just glibly talked about adoption, I had no idea what it really felt like.

I feel awful for young autistic girls who just literally need to grow up, and might be ending any chance of being biological parents by taking blockers.

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